Khizr Khan Trumps Anti-Muslim Bigotry

Khizr Khan admonishes Trump at Thursday night's DNC 

Well the first official day of the 2016 general election season is finally upon us and as the fictional English detective Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying, "The game is afoot."

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump wasted little time releasing the usual assortment of predictably angry pedestrian statements via his Twitter account today in an effort to try and counter the effects of the beating his already questionable reputation took over the course of the Democratic National Convention this past week.

Hillary Clinton delivered a carefully measured speech, but if any single message resonated equally with both Republicans and Democrats last night, it was the harsh rebuke Khizr Khan issued directly to Trump from the podium.

Khan, an American citizen who immigrated from the United Arab Emirates, is the father of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq in 2004 after running towards a suspicious car packed with explosives that was approaching his position; as the Washington Post reported, he ordered his men to take cover but was killed instantly when the car exploded - earning him a posthumous Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

In a moment that will surely be remembered as one of the most emotional of the 2016 presidential race, Khan confronted Trump's hate-filled anti-Muslim hysteria and asked the Republican candidate if he'd ever read the U.S. Constitution before offering to lend him his copy (pictured above).

Trump arrives on Capitol Hill in July

When Trump visited Capitol Hill back on July 7th, he famously assured a group of Republican Congressmen that he would defend "Article XII" of the Constitution.

But there are only seven Articles.

When Khizr Khan told Trump, "You have sacrificed nothing. And no one.", I'm not sure anyone has more effectively captured the mind-numbing hypocrisy and empty wind-bag rhetoric of Trump's concocted pseudo-patriotism.

Obviously I'm biased politically, but I find myself agreeing with the post-convention observations of conservative columnist David Brooks in his New York Times op-ed piece today titled, "The Democrats Win the Summer", in which he remarked:

"Trump has abandoned the Judeo-Christian aspirations that have always represented America's highest moral ideals: toward love, charity, humility, goodness, faith, temperance and gentleness."

With the convention concluded, Republicans must now come to grips with the reality that they've selected such a man to represent their party.

The drastic contrasts between the DNC in Philly and the overall tone of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland were highlighted by some excellent speeches in Philadelphia over the past week, particularly those by Senator Corey Booker, Bill Clinton, Vice-President Joe Biden, and of course President Obama's remarks on Wednesday night.

Hillary Clinton definitely delivered one of the most effective speeches of her career, but it wasn't the most electrifying speech of the DNC convention.

Capt. Humayan Khan

But between her and her husband's speech they did manage to humanize her, clarify her message and more importantly, began to dismantle the distorted narrative created by rage-filled Republicans still desperately trying to milk the Benghazi attacks and the email server debacle because candidate Trump is reviled by 70% of Americans and has no actual policies.

Even after a rocky start with the Debbie Wasserman-Schultz drama, the Democrats still clearly managed to pull off the better convention, and come off as the party better prepared to take the White House in 2017.

But the highlight of both conventions will be two Muslim-American parents standing up to call out Trump's anti-Muslim hatred for what it is - wrong and decidedly un-American.

And in the process, remind Republicans that amongst the graves of the thousands of military veterans that fill the hallowed ground of Arlington Cemetery in Virginia are people of all faiths, races, ethnicities and genders as Mr. Khan reminded us.

Including Captain Humayun Khan - a real patriot.

Unlike the one Trump pretends to be.